On Friday, October 29, 2004 23:41, Daniel P.B. Smith wrote:
From: John Lee johnleemk@gawab.com
vanity page? A page written by someone seeking glorification? But, why, Isn't Wikipedia supposed to be a compendium of human knowledge?
Let's take a little tour through the dictionary. I'm going to use AHD4 (running the risk of being trumped by people with access to the full OED) but, here goes.
com.pen.di.um, NOUN: Inflected forms: pl. com.pen.di.ums or com.pen.di.a (-d
Well you /did/ ask to be trumped:
The OED's online version (sans quotations and the date charts) has:
compendium
(k{schwa}m{sm}p{ope}nd{shti}{schwa}m)
Pl. -ums, -a.
[a. L. compendium that which is weighed together, a sparing, saving, abbreviation, f. compend-{ebreve}re to weigh together, f. com- + pend{ebreve}re to weigh.]
{dag} 1. A short cut; 'the near way' (J.).
2. a. An abridgement or condensation of a larger work or treatise, giving the sense and substance, within smaller compass.
b. An epitome, a summary, a brief.
c. transf. and fig. A condensed representation, an embodiment in miniature; an abstract.
d. An abbreviation whereby two or more letters are expressed by a single character.
{dag} 3. Sparing or saving; economy of labour, space, etc. Obs.
4. a. A box, etc., containing or comprising several different games.
b. A package of the stationery required for letter-writing.
HTH. ;-)
Yours,